


The Thirteenth Inkwell

by toushindai (WallofIllusion)



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: F/M, Fluff, canon-typical marital squabbles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25785514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WallofIllusion/pseuds/toushindai
Summary: The first time she throws an inkwell at him, it is their wedding night. Not an auspicious start, but not entirely unexpected, either.An enumeration.
Relationships: Attolia | Irene/Eugenides
Comments: 9
Kudos: 50





	The Thirteenth Inkwell

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally for a flash fiction challenge using a random number generator to pick words from a list to stand as the title. I rolled "The Thirteenth Inkwell" and immediately knew I had a QT fic on my hands.
> 
> If this one is familiar to you, you probably read it on my tumblr long ago. It's never been posted on an actual fic site, for reasons that are unclear to even me. Again, I'm putting it here now because I want people, specifically the discord, to see it.

The first time she throws an inkwell at him, it is their wedding night. Not an auspicious start, but not entirely unexpected, either. She has thrown things before, thinking of him. Of the danger he posed, creeping in secret through her palace. Of his obtuseness and that of his people, as they tried to negotiate a marriage. Of the fact that she has fallen in love with him, deeply, irreversibly, and the fact—every bit as irreversible—that she cut off his hand.

She throws the inkwell and then she starts to cry, because she’s afraid that they’re making a terrible mistake but she desperately, desperately wants it to be the right choice. The tears are a rarity for her. It doesn’t make the show of weakness any less humiliating. The sting is only lessened when he cries, too, covering his face with his one remaining hand, asking for her forgiveness.

She throws the second inkwell that night, too. As if _he_ were the one who needed forgiveness, in all of this insanity.

*

The third inkwell is one he throws at her. It misses her by a long shot, and she idly wonders if his aim was better with his dominant hand. The words stick in her throat. She sits, unmoving, her lips pressed together in cold resistance to his anger.

It isn’t really her he’s angry at—not directly. It’s the demands of state, the fact that he is subject to them now. He is more used to the shadows than the spotlight. _Never more trouble than he’s worth_ , Eddis promised her, but the trouble itself is not unexpected.

By the time the tailor arrives, the ink has been cleaned away, and the king is sulking rather than fuming. When he apologizes, she does, too, but not before then. She can’t help what is necessary, and he can’t be allowed to act like a child forever.

*

The fourth through eighth inkwells are all thrown by him, not technically at her. Technically, she is not even in the room when it happens; technically, as she pieces together from later events and the testimony of his one attendant who fears her more than him, his anger is directed at Nahuseresh. That doesn’t stop her from being relieved that he doesn’t come to her for a few nights; it doesn’t stop her from shattering the ninth inkwell not by throwing it against the wall but by slamming it down against her own desk so that the ink bursts out between her fingers. Phresine hurries forward at once with a dampened towel and carefully cleans the glass away, and says nothing. The queen sits with her eyes shut and lets herself be attended to.

*

Technically, technically, technically, there have been innumerable inkwells and tantrums thrown since time immemorial. The emotions involved are not new: not even to her. She has not forgotten her amphora, the scent of her hair oil that lingered to remind her of her shame. And yet she finds herself numbering these ones in her mind, keeping a careful tally. Perhaps out of the hope that by numbering them, she is creating a list that will one day have an end.

*

The tenth inkwell is thrown over Sounis. Eugenides is driving himself half-mad with the formality that he perceives as necessary. He is also utterly sabotaging the negotiations by doing so, and being an idiot besides. It is Eddis who tells him this, rather than Irene, which is why the eleventh inkwell is delayed a few days and thrown not over Sounis, but over the Mede. It doesn’t matter which Mede, exactly; they all blur together for Eugenides. Irene feels similarly, if she is being frank, but she is more accustomed to making the necessary distinctions. So, specifically: Melheret is the reason she sends a jar of deep blue ink to bounce against the wall.

*

Twelve is over something stupid, an argument that got out of hand because they are both exhausted from the demands of the day. Later, Irene can’t even recall which one of them threw the inkwell, just that the absurdity of it somehow diffused the argument. She tells him what Relius said, about her becoming a fishwife, and remembers that her answer had been _Lo, the transforming power of love_ , and she recalls how deeply, how maddeningly, how heart-wrenchingly she loves him.

*

The thirteenth inkwell never gets thrown. She’s about to, but Eugenides sighs and he puts his hand over hers and shakes his head to brush aside all the words that have crowded the room and gotten in the way. Both of their pulses are racing with the need to be right and therefore beyond reproach, but his hand is warm and the ruefulness in his smile is too familiar to deny. Irene puts the inkwell back down. And when his lips meet hers, she can even bring herself to let go of it.


End file.
